[Foundation-l] Background checks at Wikimedia

[Anthony]

On Dec 16, 2007 11:48 AM, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 16, 2007 11:39 AM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On Dec 15, 2007 8:03 PM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > There are USA-based firms that do international criminal background
> > > checks, and the firm we have retained is one of these.  We are also
> > > aware (and I for one am fairly acutely aware) of the difference in
> > > privacy regulation among the various nation-states.
> > >
> > What about bonding?  Has that been looked into and/or implemented?
> > I'd imagine the bonding company would run its own background check.
>
> For bonding or background checks, we would have to pay a third party
> some kind of money to handle them.

Obviously.

> We're a non-profit, and we
> shouldn't be spending our hard-earned money (or paying our employees
> to spend their time on it) running background checks and setting up
> surety bonds on the handful of employees we have.
>
Not necessarily all the employees, but certainly the key officers.
One example would be the treasurer.  Doing this is quite standard for
non-profits, both small and large.

> From what i've heard, Ms Doran came to the WMF originally though a
> temp agency, and it would surprise me to learn that the temp agency
> didnt run a background check of their own (and if they did, why didn't
> they make the information known to the WMF before contracting out the
> work?). The lesson in this is to be careful who you hire, and maybe
> never use that same agency again.
>
That's one lesson, but it isn't the only one.